WE TALK OF, REJOICE IN, PROPHESY ABOUT AND WRITE OF CHRIST

Some years ago, a former stake president challenged my husband and I to leave our testimonies in writing for our children.  He quoted this scripture from 2 Nephi 25: And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.(verse 26) It is to this end that I have written all of my adult life, whether books, stories, journals, and talks. I want my children to know that I have a testimony of Jesus Christ and immense gratitude for His infinite atoning sacrifice for me and for each of them.

I don't know how much of my writing my children and grandchildren have actually read.  I pray that they will return to my words after I am gone and know that I believe in Christ and His Gospel and I believe Christ has and will do everything he has promised.

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We are about to begin a new week and a new study challenge - more writings from the Book of Isaiah.  We are so blessed to have these verses in the Book of Mormon because prophets like Nephi and Jacob and others who quoted Isaiah take time to help their people (and, hence, us) understand the symbolism that floods Isaiah's prophecies.

In our study guide, we read the following: 

Nephi acknowledged that for some, “the words of Isaiah are not plain” (2 Nephi 25:4) . This can certainly be true for those who aren’t familiar with ancient Jewish culture and geography like Nephi was (see 2 Nephi 25:6)  But Nephi also gave counsel to help us find meaning in Isaiah’s writings. (Come Unto Christ, February 17-23) 

Nephi gave two key suggestions.  I have used both and can testify that they truly do help in understanding the messages of Isaiah.

Liken the scriptures to yourself (see 2 Nephi 11:2) Nephi's people who had never lived in Jerusalem, didn't understand the symbolic nature of Hebrew poetry and prophecy.  They didn't get the references to thinks that those from Jerusalem would have known.  Nephi asks us to do the same thing. We can learn about some of the poetic forms of Hebrew poetry, but more importantly, we can ask the Spirit to help us learn those things that are applicable to us in the 21st Century.

Seek to be filled the Spirit of Prophecy. (2 Nephi 25:4) These words were written under the Spirit and they require the presence of the Spirit to understand them.  It will be the Spirit who will tutor us in those things most beneficial in our lives.

Of all of the Isaiah verses quoted in the Book of Mormon,  out of  refer to Jesus Christ. The lesson challenges us as we read this week's assignments (and in all of Isaiah) that we look for symbols the represent Jesus Christ or Messianic Prophecy.

Chapter 17

• 14: a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel
• Chapter 19

• 3: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Ancient Nazareth

1: the dimness shall not be . . . in the land of  Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali 

 2: the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light (Study key: Nazareth of Galilee was part of the inheritance of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali 

Chapter 20

•  17: And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and His Holy One for a flame, and shall burn and shall devour his thorns and his briers in one day . . . 
• (Part of the curse at the Fall of Adam was thorns instead of fruits. Jesus Christ is the Light of Israel who shall atone for the fall.)
  

Chapter 22

2: Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation.

6: . . . for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

Chapter 23

 4: the Lord of Hosts

 6: the Almighty

Nebuchadnezzar, the Fallen King

Description of Satan from Chapter 24

12  How are thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

13 For thou hast said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation. . . 

14 . . . I will be like the Most High (the Most High is a reference to Jesus Christ)

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell . . .

On a literal level, this set of verses refers to the fall of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, but on a symbolic level, it certainly describes he who is our adversary and is often used as a representation of Satan. I love the poet Milton's description of this event in his epic poem, Paradise Lost.

Now it is your turn.  What symbolic references can you find going forward?

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

Speaking of my writing, I don't know if anyone is reading my blog.  I'd love to know if you are.  Thanks!

THE WOES

Yesterday, I wrote about the O's in 2 Nephi 9.  Jacob taught the Plan of Happiness, beginning with the Creation, through the Fall, highlighting the Atonement, and concluding with the Resurrection.  He led each idea he present with O, the goodness of our God.

Fate of the Lamanites:

And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark

and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.( 1 Nephi 12: 23)

He followed this with the other side of the coin; these began with Woe. These are warnings to those who choose to ignore or rebel against God.  Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael had made that choice, over and over again, and in short order, had degenerated into a morally dark and lazy people.  The contrast between the two groups could not have been more pronounced. Jacob did not want his people to follow the bad example of his eldest brothers.

Jacob explained the relationship between mercy and justice. To receive the mercy of the atonement, one must have faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ; repent of his or her sins, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and be confirmed by the Spirit and endure faithfully to the end. Those who do not believe nor repent nor be baptized must be damned. (verse 24)  Since we have used the word damn as a profane oath for generations, we sometimes forget its literal meaning.  When a river is dammed, it ceases to progress on its course.  People who are damned are not able to progress to their full spiritual potential. 

Many people have a hard time reconciling Jehovah of the Old Testament with Jesus of the New. They see the first as a God of Justice and the latter as a God of Mercy.  In truth, he is both. He dispenses justice where justice is required and he extends mercy to those who repent and enter into the water of baptism and endure faithfully to the end.

In this last dispensation, the Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith that there is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven. (Doctrine and Covenants 130: 20) Jacob taught the same thing in his day. He taught that if a person is without the law, then he will not be condemned. For the atonement satisfieth the demands of justice upon all those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, . . . and are restored to that god who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel. (verse 26-27) In the book of Moroni, Mormon also applied this to little children under the age of accountability and to anyone who is unable to be held mentally accountable.

Here are the warnings to those who are accountable and make a different choice;  it doesn't matter why they make that choice, just that they made it. The anti-Christs in the Book of Mormon made a lot of excuses for their behaviors, but in the end, it didn't matter.

Woe unto him who has the law and transgresses it.

Woe unto the rich who, because of their riches, despise and mistreat the poor.  

Woe to the deaf that will not hear.

Woe to the blind that will not see.

Woe to the murderer, the liar, the adulterer, the idolater.

Jacob ended this part of his sermon by asking his brethren who had allowed sin to bind them to shake off their chains. Sometimes people feel that living the gospel restricts our freedom, but just the opposite is true.  Sinning restricts our freedom because we have given part of our agency to someone or something that is not God. 

Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritiually-minded is life eternal. (verse 39)

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

THE O'S

3 Pillars of Eternity: Creation, Fall, and Atonement

Today I am reading 2 Nephi 9. Jacob, like other Book of Mormon prophets, does a masterful job of linking the Fall and the Atonement in such a way as to make the entire Plan easy to understand.  I don't think a prophet ever taught the atonement without also teaching the fall and linking the two as natural companion.

The lesson manual challenged us, as we read 2 Nephi 9, to compare the O's (blessings) to the Woes (warnings). I decided to take that challenge. Today, I want to talk about the O's.

O's

O, the goodness of our God in sending His Son to atone for our sins.  Through the infinite atonement, Jesus Christ saves us unequivocally from death and offers us salvation from sin on condition of repentance. Without this great blessing of love, we would all become as Satan is: doomed to a life of separation from God and the loss of our eternal bodies. 

O, how great the goodness of our God. The Fall brought about two deaths: death of the body and death of the spirit.  Jacob calls them the awful monsters of death and hell. Jesus Christ holds the keys to death and hell.  Neither can hold us eternally.  We are not captives of the  monster.

O, how great the plan of our God.  The grave must give up its dead.  The unrepentant will have a perfect knowledge of their guilt, but the righteous will have the perfect knowledge of their righteousness and joy.  They shall be clothed in a robe of righteousness.

O, the greatness and justice of our God. Because He is God, He will administer absolute justice.  Those who repent will have their debts of justice paid by the Great Redeemer. We can rest assured that judgement is the Lord's and not ours.  We don't have to recompense for hurt.  Christ will do so with perfect knowledge of the hearts of men and women.  We can trust His justice to be pure.

O, the greatness of the mercy of our God. He delivers His saints from the monster, Satan, and from the joint monsters of death and hell.

O, how great the holiness of our God.

• He knows everything
• He came to give His life to save everyone who will hearken unto His voice.
• He suffered the pains of every living creature who belong to the family of Adam.
• He was resurrected so that all mankind may be resurrected as He was.
• He commands all to repent that they might have both salvation and exaltation.

In our day, people - even many Christians - have intellectualize God's Great Plan of Salvation - the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement, and yes, even the corporeal nature of Jesus' Resurrection. They don't understand the completeness of God's Plan.  They think because they are learned, they are wise, but they are not.  As Jacob taught all those years ago, to be learned is good, if you still give heed to the counsel of God. Jacob would later say, Brethren, seek not to counselor the Lord, but to take counsel from His hand. (Jacob 4:10)

Tomorrow, the Woes

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

THEY THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD

Isaiah uses the term "wait upon the Lord" on more than one occasion.  In the Isaiah passage quoted by Jacob in 2 Nephi 8:5, Isaiah said The isles* shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. I quoted of my favorite scriptures yesterday referring to they that wait upon the Lord shall rise on wings as eagles. (Isaiah 40: 31)

For years, I thought of waiting upon the Lord as simply and passively sitting by, waiting for Him to come.  With some maturity, I think it is more than that.  I suggest we look at other meanings for the word wait. The online dictionary (Merriam Webster) gives great depth to the word.  The most obvious definition is the one I just gave: [1] to remain stationary in expectation. Passive waiting is not a worthy goal.  If I am not moving forward, I am regressing.  I don't remain stationary.

However, when used in the phrase wait upon, it means [2] to serve. That is the way it us used in naming waiters - those who serve meals to patrons. In this light, wait upon the Lord means serve the Lord. This context expands the term from simply passively staying in one place in expectation to being actively involved in serving the Lord. Lords and ladies in waiting to royalty were not passive, but active in serving.  Jesus Christ is the ultimate King. To be a lady in waiting is an honor.

One of the questions asked in our study guide is this: What can I do to more faithfully "wait" for the Savior and His promised blessings? Each of us will have his or her own ideas to answer this question.  Here are some things that have come to my mind.  It is certainly not an exhaustive list.

Under the first definition, I can strive to be more patient.  Patient for prayers to be answered. Patient in understanding something that is at present unclear. Patient with others. Patient, knowing that the Lord's timing is not necessarily m timing. Sometimes we approach Him in prayer as if He were some sort of Celestial Santa Claus.  

Ideas under the second definition can be almost infinite.  We can serve the Lord through our prayers, study of His word, faithful attention to our covenants, and the like.  We can also serve the Lord by serving His children with unconditional and unfeigned love.  This is particularly true when we serve someone who is difficult to serve.  I learned as a teacher that the child who was the most off-putting and who seemed to deserve my love and attention the least was, in fact, the one who needed it the most.

I may be limited in what I can do,  but even when I am ill, I can love; I can show compassion. I can be kind. I may be limited, but the Savior is not limited. He has helped me achieve this incredible unconditional love -  even for those who appear difficult to love.

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

*I recently heard a statement that the isles upon the sea frequently mentioned in scriptures include the continents of North and South America. Columbus referred to them as such in his journals.

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE AND WHOSE YOU ARE

Jacob wanted the people of Nephi to understand who they are in relationship to their God. They were more than 40 years away from Jerusalem and most had never experienced life in the Holy Land. He chose reminders from the writings of Isaiah; reminders of the Lord's promises to Israel and of the promises Israel owed to God.

In the symbolic poetry of Isaiah, the Lord often used the image of Himself as the loving husband and Israel as the backsliding wife. In the role of husband, the Savior fulfil the responsibilities to Preside, Provide, and Protect.* When Israel became blind to the fact that the Lord was doing all three, she forgot her duties as a wife.  She blamed her husband for the sense of distance between them and used her failures as a rationale to accuse Him of abandonment. 

Isaiah wrote (and Jacob quoted)
Yea, for thus saith the Lord: Have I put thee away, or have I cast thee off forever? For thus saith the Lord: Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? To whom have I put thee away, or to which of  my creditors have I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is you mother put away. (2 Nephi 7:1)

Abraham expelling Hagar 

In ancient Israel, if a man wanted to put away his wife, all he had to do was give her a written bill of divorcement and escort her from his home.  The wife had no say in the matter and no legal recourse.  Christ wants His people to understand that He was not the one who instituted divorce proceedings. He did not send us out of His home or sell us to another.  As an unfaithful wife, Israel had walked away. This was particularly shameful because the wife had no legal right to do that under the Law. 

This left the wife in dire straights.  The woman was left a non-person, who had to beg or prostiture herself just to survive.  She needed a strong male relative to take her into His home for her salvation. The analogy holds true for us: we also need someone to save us from death and a fate worse than death.  This is what Jesus Christ does for us.  When we come unto Him for safety, He adopts us as loving Father and the elder Brother of all Heavenly Father's children.

As we read Isaiah, the question is asked: What do I learn about the Savior's love for me? What comfort does He offer to those who seek Him? From these very verses we learn some key points to remember about Jesus Christ:

He is the Creator and has power over everything in the Universe.  why should we doubt His ability to deliver us from sin and death? (see verses 2-4)

He is the promised Messiah. (see verse 6 for a strong Messianic prophecy)

He is committed to stand with us as Advocate against the accusations of the adversary. (See verses 7-9)

He is even more.  He answered the demands of Justice from the Fall and saves us from both Death and Hell, but He also offers us exaltation if we by wait upon the Lord.**

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

* Preside, Provide, and Protect

** This was my father's favorite scripture.  He had it carved on his headstone as a declaration the he is one who waited upon the Lord.

WHO WAS JACOB?

When Lehi left Jerusalem, he took four sons with him.  All were late teens or young adults.  During the 8 years they traveled through the wilderness, Sariah gave birth to 2 young sons.  Lehi named them Jacob and Joseph, after Joseph who was sold into Egypt and his father, Jacob/Israel.  Lehi had recently learned from the brass plates that he was a descendent of Joseph.  He wanted his sons to remember that they were of the house of Israel whenever they thought of their own names. 

When the boys were young men, their brother Nephi, who by then was the leader of his people, ordained them to be priests and ministers to the people of Nephi in the land of Nephi.  When Nephi died, he passed the birthright responsibilities on to his brother Jacob.

Jacob remembered that he was a descendant of Jacob/Israel and he tried to impress upon his people that fact that they were of the house of Israel and were, therefore, under the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel and Joseph. God had renewed that covenant with their grandfather, Lehi, including a choice land, safe to those who worshipped the God of the land, who was Jesus Christ.

Jacob had been asked by his brother Nephi, to speak to those assembled in the Land of Nephi.  He began by citing his authority, and went on to say that he had great concern for their welfare.  It had been 40 years since Lehi left Jerusalem, and many, if not most, of the people there had never known the Holy Land.  But they did have the scriptures from the Brass Plates and they had been taught the history and covenants of Israel.  I am wondering if some of them had been lackadaisical in their observance of their part of the covenant.  Nephi doesn't tell us. Jacob, in fulfilling his assignment. chose to speak from the words of Isaiah those things which were pertaining to the Lord's Covenant with Israel.  Like his brother, he asks that the people liken these scriptures to themselves because they are of the lineage and House of Israel.

These are the words: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; . . . and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. (1 Nephi 6: 5-6)

As is Isaiah's style, this scripture has multiple fulfillments.  Jacob tells the people that their brethren in Jerusalem have been taken captive to Babylon.  He is optimistic, however, of the Jew's ultimate salvation and return to the land of Judah. The king who was the nursing father was the Persian King, Cyrus.  He not only allowed, but encouraged the Jews to return to Palestine.  

But Jacob wants to talk to his people about the second time the Lord will restore Judah. This refers to the creation of the nation of Israel in 1948.  Once again, king and queens and other world leaders played a role.  The travesty of the Holocaust was a huge factor in world support for giving the Jews a land of their own. 

Jacob picks up on Isaiah's word waits. He references waiting to Israel waiting for the Messiah. He promises that when Israel begins to recognize their Redeemer as Jesus Christ, they will be gathered again: . . . when they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer, they shall be gathered together again to the lands of their inheritance. (2 Nephi 6: 11) This gathering began with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel in 1830. It is interesting to

me that L.D.S. Apostle, Orson Hyde, was sent to Jerusalem in 1842, to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews. Not long afterward, in the late 19th century, the Zionism movement was officially recognized led by such men a Theodor Herzel, who is considered to be the father of this movement ( lower right hand corner of the above illustration.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Even today the gathering goes forward. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are among the chief gatherers, called to be Fishers of Men in the last days. They are first gathered to the gospel and then to their lands of inheritance.

One final note: President Donald Trump was being compared to King Cyrus months before his election.  He has turned what was a very anti-Israel posture of the previous administration to a position of great support for Israel.  Unbeknownst to him, I'm sure, he actually fulfilled a scriptural promise when, on December 6, 2017, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel rather than Tel Aviv.  He stated in his speech that it was time to recognize reality. (I have read the scripture about Israel restored and Jerusalem her capital but can't find it! Sorry!)

© February 2020.  Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson